This book examines catalysts for Buddhist formation in ancient South Asia and expansion throughout and beyond the northwestern Indian subcontinent to Central Asia by investigating symbiotic relationships between networks of religious mobility and trade.

Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss were consummate collectors and patrons. The illustrated essays in this volume reveal how the Blisses' wide-ranging interests in art, music, gardens, architecture, and interior design resulted in the creation of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection--what they came to call their "home of the humanities."